Tuning magnetic spirals beyond room temperature with chemical disorder

TL;DR

This paper shows that by controlling chemical disorder in YBaCuFeO5, the magnetic spiral phase can be stabilized above room temperature, enhancing its potential for spintronics and magnetoelectric applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to extend the stability of magnetic spirals beyond room temperature via chemical disorder manipulation.

Findings

Stability domain of the spiral phase increased by over 150K.

Magnetic spiral state stabilized above 25°C at zero magnetic field.

Properties of magnetic spirals can be engineered through chemical disorder.

Abstract

In the past years, magnetism-driven ferroelectricity and gigantic magnetoelectric effects have been reported for a number of frustrated magnets with spiral magnetic orders. Such materials are of high current interest due to their potential for spintronics and low-power magnetoelectric devices. However, their low magnetic order temperatures (typically <100K) greatly restrict their fields of application. Here we demonstrate that the stability domain of the spiral phase in the perovskite YBaCuFeO5 can be enlarged by more than 150K through a controlled manipulation of the Fe/Cu chemical disorder. Moreover we show that this novel mechanism can stabilize the magnetic spiral state of YBaCuFeO5 above the symbolic value of 25{\deg}C at zero magnetic field. Our findings demonstrate that the properties of a magnetic spiral, including its wavelength and stability range, can be engineered through the control of chemical disorder, offering a great potential for the design of materials with magnetoelectric properties beyond room temperature.